


Jailbreak

by ZestyMelon



Series: Time to Run Again [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/F, Humor, Romance, Time Travel is not good for your dating life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-09-28 04:28:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10071506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZestyMelon/pseuds/ZestyMelon
Summary: Jenny's dating someone. Someone is trying to assassinate her. These things are not unrelated, and that's just one of the many reasons why time travel is weird. Another reason is that now Jenny's sometimes girlfriend sometimes assassin is asking her to break her past self out of prison, and Jenny isn't quite sure which version she's getting. Still, it might be just the chance she needs to figure this relationship out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Second in a series, but first chronologically. If you haven't read the first, all you need to know is that Jenny got her hands on a vortex manipulator (because of course she did), and Prentice is her companion, a Time Agent who really doesn't want to be here. Happy reading!

The thing about Prentice and Jenny was, they were friends. Simple enough idea, Jenny would have thought. It was just like dating minus the romance. Plenty of other people did it. Didn’t stop certain people, particularly humans it must be said, from failing to grasp the concept.

 

               “Don’t move,” said Balfrog, His Eminent Destroyer. The timer on the wall showed only minutes left before global nuclear apocalypse, and worrisome though that was, the more immediate issue was the gun Balfrog was holding against Prentice’s head. “One more step, and your boyfriend dies!”

 

               “He’s not my boyfriend,” Jenny said. She crossed her arms.

 

               “Jenny!” said Prentice. “Maybe not the time to point that out!”

 

               “He’s not?” said  Balfrog. He scratched his head. “So...I should shoot him?”

 

               “Of course not,” said Jenny. “Why would you shoot him?”

 

               “But he’s not your boyfriend.”

 

               “No, but he is a friend. And actually, I’d quite like it if you didn’t kill him. Or anyone, for that matter.”

 

               “Oh, I see. Why didn’t you just say so?” Balfrog put his gun down, and turned to shut off the countdown.

 

               “Wait, what?” said Prentice.

 

               “I value Jenny’s opinion. You know she was absolutely right about my banana bread from earlier? I did put too much sugar in it,” said Balfrog.

 

               “But—then—Why were you trying to stop her just now? Why did you try and shoot me?”

 

               “ _Threaten_ to shoot you. And I didn’t know Jenny disapproved of what I was doing. She never said. Words speak louder than actions, you see. You have to say words, while actions can be quiet. Like tip-toeing! That’s just one example. Next time, use your words. It’s not like I can read minds anymore, not at my age!”

 

A few days later in 1870s Texas, Prentice was being thrown into the town jail.

 

            “You can’t do that, let him go!” said Jenny, making an impressive surge forward as the four men restraining her nearly lost their grips.

 

            “Lady, your husband here started a bar fight,” said the sheriff with the sort of world weariness people usually only had when they’d known Jenny for at least an hour. At just fifteen minutes, he held the new record. “He sucker punched the damn preacher.”

 

            “That’s because the preacher is actually an alien robot trying to—hang on, he’s not my husband.”

 

            “Jenny, please, it’s not important,” said Prentice.

           

            “No, I think it is important. I don’t want to go on giving people a false impression. I think the sheriff would like me to clear this up.”

 

            “I think he’d like it better if you told him about the nanobots the robo-preacher put in the water supply,” said Prentice.

 

            “I can explain both.”

 

            “We have twenty minutes before the nanobots are activated and the entire town turned into mindless drones.”

 

            “So not that much different from now, exactly my point,” said Jenny with a side-eye for each of the four men holding her in place. “And twenty minutes is plenty of time to say this: Prentice and I are friends. No prefix needed, no qualification to be made. We are certainly not married, not the least because marriage is an outdated, patriarchal construction built on the premise of –“

 

            “Jenny!”

 

            “Not now, Prentice—an agrarian society where land and land inheritance were of primary concern—“

 

            “Jenny, this speech takes at least twenty-five minutes. I’ve timed it. Can we please just stop the nanobots?”

 

They did stop the nanobots, incidentally. And it wasn’t that Jenny minded too much, really. People could have their opinions, and that she was dating Prentice was far from the worst thing anyone had thought about her. The real problem was, Jenny really was dating someone. That someone just happened to be not-Prentice.

 

Well, dating. That’s a tricky word, really. See, Jenny was only dating someone in a certain sense. In another sense, she had an assassin after her. The problem with time travel was that the dating-someone and the assassin-someone were one and the same someone.

 

It all started at the Grand Yarn Festival of Zanadu. Prentice and Jenny had been walking around, and had just stopped to look at a four meter dragon sculpture made entirely of yarn, when from out of the crowd a stranger stepped up and kissed Jenny right on the lips.

 

            “Um, pleased to meet you?” Jenny had said when they pulled away.

 

The stranger was tall, taller than Jenny anyway. She had dark skin, and darker hair pulled into a long braid that fell nearly to her waist. She had freckles across her face, and deep brown eyes that, in that moment, were looking altogether confused.

 

            “What are you talking about?” said the stranger. “Jenny, you know me.”

 

She really didn’t. The stranger refused to clear up the heart of the confusion, but did give a name, at least.

 

            “It’s XT,” she said.

 

            “What does that stand for?” asked Jenny. XT gaped at her, looked down to the watch on her wrist, then spun around and took off before Jenny could get an answer. And that was the end of that, except for the fact it wasn’t.

 

The next time they met, Jenny was wandering around the abandoned catacombs of Kalhara, somewhere on a planet in the Restanine system. She had been tracking a child’s lost rabbit, though it was looking increasingly like Snuffles had been captured by government scientists for reasons as yet unclear, though assuredly sinister.

 

Jenny stepped out of the corridor into a wide, cavernous room, registering with some curiosity that the space was already alight with flaming, medieval-looking torches. From the corner of her eye, Jenny saw a shadow shift. The next moment, Jenny was on the ground, diving out of the way as a shot from a blaster sailed past the place her head had occupied not a second earlier. She hopped to her feet, dancing and weaving her way between shots, and inching across the room until she stood close enough to finally make out a face in the flickering light cast by the torches.

 

            “XT?” Jenny asked.

 

            “What are you talking about?” said XT. “You don’t know me.”

 

And with that she continued firing. It went on like that for a while. Not the firing thing—well, that too—but each time Jenny ran into XT, it would go one of two ways. Either XT would be trying to kill her, or XT would  be trying to kiss her. Trouble was, it was sometimes a little unclear which one was going on.

 

            “My plans are complete!” Herferg the Redeemer of Glorious Malevolence said to Jenny and Prentice, whom he had tied up at the other end of the room after they’d tried to foil his plans. “Soon this planet, and then the galaxy will be mine! No one can stop me!”

 

            “No one?” said Jenny. “Surely someone could.”

 

            “Nuh-uh,” said Herferg. “I tied you up. No way you break free from that rope. I tie excellent knots.”

 

            “I’m sure you do,” Jenny said placatingly. “But just for the sake of accuracy, and understand I’m speaking only theoretically here, surely there is someone who could possibly stop you, even if it’s not necessarily my friend or me.”

 

Herferg scratched his chin.

 

            “Well I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head,” he said.

 

            “I can,” said Jenny.

 

Which was when XT hit him, right on the top of his head. Herferg collapsed, but even before his legs gave out, XT had shot off Prentice and Jenny’s restraints. By the time Herferg hit the floor, Jenny was bouncing over to XT, a wide smile on her face.

 

            “Miss me?” XT said.

 

            “You know I—oh.” Jenny again found herself staring down the barrel of XT’s blaster. “So we’re doing this again.”

 

            “When do we ever do different?”

 

            “Hard to say. I’ve tried keeping a chart, but I think it fell into a sun. Along with my iPod. I don’t actually like to talk about it.”

 

The situation was confusing enough on its own, but it was Jenny and Prentice’s oft mistaken relationship status that made the whole situation especially complicated.

 

            “Are you trying to kill me, or are you just mad at me?” Was becoming far too common a sentence for Jenny.

 

            “That’s going to depend,” said XT. “Why does Balfrog His Eminent Destroyer seem to be under the impression that you and Prentice are madly in love?”

 

Thing was, Jenny didn’t need to explain herself, not to XT. Even though they’d run into each other on about a half-dozen occasions, most of which turned into whirlwind adventures of life or death importance, Jenny still knew very little about her. For instance, Jenny didn’t know what her favorite kind of ice cream was. Or why XT was trying to kill her, but only sometimes. That didn’t mean Jenny knew nothing about her, of course. In fact, the very little Jenny did know had her falling just a little bit madly in love.

 

            “It’s okay, nobody panic!” said Prentice, flipping desperately through his Time Agency manual.

 

            “No one’s panicked, it’s only a bomb,” said XT.

 

            “I know there’s a chapter that explains how to defuse—“

 

            “Let me see?” And before Prentice could respond, XT had taken his book and thrown it out the window. “I’ve got a pocket knife, guts, and a working knowledge of mechanical engineering. I can figure this out.”

 

Prentice gaped at her, then looked longingly to the window where his beloved book had been thrown, and turned finally, hopelessly, back to Jenny.

 

            “You sure she’s not trying to kill you right now?”

 

And Jenny had only smiled.

 

Because XT was reckless, intelligent, and more than anything, she was _fun_. And yes, the whole half-the-time-being-an-assassin-out-to-kill-her thing probably wasn’t ideal in a relationship, but Jenny found she liked even that part. XT played fair, and she played well, and after Jenny defeated one too many despots with a well-crafted rumor, it was nice to have a real challenge. In a universe full of small-mindedness (except for one Time Lord Jenny was still having trouble tracking down), XT was her only equal.

 

So when XT had shown up on Jenny’s door step (well, technically she’d shown up to an army base where Jenny and Prentice were being held, then presented the evidence both to acquit them and incriminate the rogue military scientists who had _really_ been behind the alien crash-landing at Roswell), when she held Jenny’s hands, looked deep into her eyes, and said,

 

            “I need your help with something. It’s important.”

 

Jenny had simply asked,

 

            “What do you need?”

 

XT smiled.

  
            “I need you to break me out.”

 

And really, that was all there was to it.

 

Well, except for the many, many things that happened next.


	2. Chapter 2

Six months, four days, two hours, and eight minutes. Yes, XT was counting. She would have liked to carve the number of days into the walls, like prisoners in old Earth movies, but the walls of her cell were smooth and tough, and she didn’t have anything sharp enough to leave a mark.

 

Six months, four days, two hours, and nine minutes. She was counting the hours now. That was new. There was no special reason for it either, just that knowing the more exact amount made it better. Being in here for over six months sounded bad. Being in here for six months, four days, two hours and nine—that’s ten, now—minutes sounded amusingly exact.

 

Six months, four days, two hours, and eleven minutes. She didn’t always count the minutes. She did that only at certain points in the day, those times where she’d been left alone so long that she knew something was coming. Counting minutes felt like counting down to it, so even when she didn’t know what or when it was, it felt anticipated. Planned. It felt like she hadn’t lost all control.

 

Six months, four days, two hours, and twelve minutes after XT had been thrown in this place, there was a knock at her cell door.

 

            “That you, Aldo?” she called out.

 

            “Brought your lunch,” Aldo replied.

 

XT swung her feet onto the ground, and crossed the short distance between her cot and the door. She grabbed the tray Aldo passed through the slot, and regarded the blue mush with all its due distain.

 

            “Protein 4?” she said hopefully.

 

            “3 again. Sorry to disappoint. I tried putting a word in at the kitchen, but they’re not keen on taking suggestions from the inmates.”

 

            “I’m no criminal.”

 

            “I try explaining that, I could end up in there with you.”

 

            “I didn’t do anything wrong.” XT could practically hear Aldo shrug in response on the other side of the door.

 

            “You knew the risks,” he said.

 

            “There shouldn’t be risks.”

 

            “We don’t live in a ‘should’ kind of world. We live in the world that is.”

 

XT sighed.

 

            “Protein 3?”

 

            “Sorry to disappoint.”

 

She took the tray and set it on the floor before returning to her cot. Protein 3 never tasted good, but it would taste better if she waited a bit. Hunger was the best seasoning, as she had been finding out.

 

As XT laid in her bed and stared at the ceiling, she wondered again just how long they’d keep this up. Six months, four days, two hours, and thirteen minutes had passed. She didn’t want to start counting years.

 

* * *

 

Scadoosh was a small former space colony in the Halpern system where EVERYTHING IS GOOD! So proclaimed a billboard. And several posters. Possibly more than several. And that wasn’t the only billboard. All of them held the same slogan, white text against a blue background, with the same man’s face to the right of the sentence. It was altogether a strange yet charming refrain that Jenny began to appreciate only moments after arriving.

 

            “They really feel the need to remind you,” she said as yet another bus passed by with the slogan plastered to the side. “Thoughtful, but is it really necessary?”

 

            “Not everyone has your rosy outlook,” Prentice said. “So what are we here for?”

 

Jenny very purposefully avoided eye contact.

 

            “What? No reason. Just thought, y’know, Scadoosh! Fun name. So we’re visiting.”

 

            “I realized,” he said dryly. “Jenny—“

 

            “Not everything needs a reason in life, Prentice, sometimes you just have to go where the wind takes you—“

 

            “Jenny—“

 

            “And just stop to, y’know, take it in! Enjoy the sights! I mean look at that, Prentice, have you ever seen a building so…rectangular?”

 

            “Jenny.”

 

She sighed.

 

            “It’s XT.”

 

            “Where?”

 

            “Scadoosh. Here. She’s in trouble.”

 

            “She _is_ trouble. Why are we here?”

 

            “To help her!”

 

            “Why?”

 

            “She asked.”

 

            “Well, sure, but why?”

 

            “Because she’s in trouble!”

 

            “Not that, I mean,” Prentice let out a breath. “So she’s in trouble. Why are we here?”

 

            “Because I like her. And she asked.”

 

Prentice crossed his arms.

 

            “And do we know which XT this is?”

 

Jenny raised an eyebrow at him.

 

            “Which?”

 

            “Yeah. Which. The, uh,” Prentice mimed shooting at her, “or, you know, the nicer one.”

 

            “They’re the same person,” Jenny said slowly.

 

            “Sure, sure,” he said. “But, well, clearly—Well, you meet up with her at different points, right? One of which is clearly before you win her over with your charm and pluck. That or the break up _really_ doesn’t go well.”

 

Jenny punched him in the arm.

 

            “Ow!”

 

Jenny, incidentally, really knows how to throw a punch.

 

            “I take it back! You’re great! Don’t know why anyone would break up with you,” he said, rubbing his arm. “What kind of trouble is she in anyway?”

 

            “Well…“

 

            “It’s not like last week, is it? Because I’m telling you, if we have to fight another kraken—“

 

            “It’s not that.”

 

            “Well?”

 

            “You won’t like it.”

 

            “I already don’t, go on.”

 

            “She’s in some sort of prison. And she did happen to mention…well, this is the first time we meet.”

 

            “The first time…?” Prentice shook his head. “Not the nicer one then.”

 

            “I’d say not.”

 

            “This is the,” he brought the finger gun back out.

 

            “That one, yes.”

 

            “The one trying to kill you.”

 

            “That appears to be her intent.”

 

            “We’re rescuing someone who wants you dead for reasons we’re still unclear on—“

 

            “Yes, that’s what’s happening.”

 

            “From the place that, in all likelihood, is the place training her to kill you—“

 

            “We don’t know that for sure.”

 

            “At a guess though, that’s the case?”

 

            “I’m keeping an open mind, but the possibility is inescapable.”

 

            “Right. And you see no problem with this?”

 

Jenny gave him The Look. Jenny had many different looks for many different situations. There was the one for when she thought Prentice was being unbelievably dense. There was another she had for when she needed to be rescued from a boring conversation (often with mayors after they’d given her keys to the city; Jenny, having never found city gates to go along with the keys, didn’t see the point). This look, The Look, Prentice always thought of as one of Jenny’s many superpowers. Her eyes grew wide, and just slightly teary. She didn’t pout, but set her jaw firm, as if trying and failing to hide her emotion. Prentice knew better. The Look was a powerful force, and she had it weaponized. It was that perfect alchemy of hurt, earnestness, and pleading that had even the most villainous scoundrels in the universe melting into puddles before its intensity. Prentice had seen its effects many times. He should have been immune.

 

            “She asked me, Prentice.”

 

He understood the subtext, too. How could Jenny, fighter for all things right and just in the universe, willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, refuse a direct request like that from someone, even if that someone wanted her dead?

 

            “And besides,” she said. “I _really_ like her.”

 

Well. That was that.


	3. Chapter 3

Scadoosh was covered in posters. More accurately, Scadoosh was covered in one poster, the same thing again and again, the single phrase, “EVERYTHING IS GOOD!”, with a man, bald, beady-eyed, and unsmiling, staring down disdainfully at whoever happened to view him.

 

Scadoosh was covered in posters, but the posters were covered too. Some were only simply altered, giving the man a mustache and an oversized pair of glasses. Some were more elaborate, like the ones which obscured the G so the phrase read “EVERYTHING IS OOD!”, while the man’s face was covered in drawings of linguini-like tentacles.

 

The artistry involved in some of these alterations was made all the more impressive given how little time they lasted. Invariably, a vandalized poster would be taken down within the day, only to be replaced by a new copy of the same old thing. Though the picture never strictly changed, one couldn’t help but feel the man’s face looked less and less pleased with each replacement.

 

That posters were still being vandalized rather confounded law enforcement. The police never saw anyone doing it, could never find spray paint or markers in random searches and arrests. The penalties for graffiti were ever increasing, and the risks hardly seemed worth the effort, from the most uncreative additions of parts of the male anatomy, to the alterations which transformed the serious, stern-faced man into a tearful clown complete with make-up and funny red nose. Nevertheless, the practice persisted, and, if anything, grew more elaborate and ubiquitous. What amounted to a war was taking place on the city streets of the nation’s capital, with one side committed to winning, and the other content simply to make its point that in Scadoosh, EVERYTHING was not GOOD. There simply weren’t many outlets left to make that point. The ones that were? Those weren’t as safe as marking up posters in the middle of the night.

 

            “You can’t.”

 

            “I have to.”

 

            “Don’t.”

 

            “Dad—“

 

            “Please. Just don’t.”

 

            “Someone has to. Someone has to stand up and speak out.”

 

            “It doesn’t have to be you.”

 

            “Yes it does.”

 

            “Why?”

 

            “Because of all the other people who don’t get past that question.”

 

Marcel knew his daughter. The conversation was over. He looked across a street and saw a poster, one with a speech bubble above the president’s head which read simply, “I’m a fraud.” He watched as a policewoman tore it down and replaced it. The president stared out at him. The words were gone. They always seemed to wash right off.

 

Scadoosh was covered in posters, the posters were covered in graffiti, and the people were getting bolder. New posters emerged, with simple phrases, from EVERYTHING IS BAD!, to THIS IS A LIE!, to SPEAK OUT! and FREEDOM NOW! Before long, posters turned to picket signs, slogans to chants, and on the main square in the nation’s capital, the people made sure their voices were heard.

 

* * *

 

 

            “That’s it, just there!”

 

            “Does it have to be?”

 

            “Prentice!”

 

Prentice looked at the monstrosity of concrete that apparently held XT, and not for the first time thought this endeavor to be a terrible idea.

 

            “It’s surrounded by security,” he said.

 

            “Yes,” said Jenny.

 

            “They’ve got guns. Plus a big, barbed wire fence.”

 

            “Yes.”

 

            “The fence is probably electric.”

 

            “It definitely is.”

 

            “Really?”

 

            “I got close to it and reached my arm out. My arm hair got all tingly.”

 

            “Brilliant,” Prentice sighed. “Do we have an actual plan?”

 

            “Do we ever?”

 

            “Maybe one day. I hold out hope.”

 

Jenny did, at that point, come up with a plan. It started with Prentice’s coat.

 

            “Why’s it got to be my coat?” said Prentice.

 

            “Your coat is bigger,” said Jenny.

 

            “Doesn’t matter how big it is, it’s a coat. No one’s going to actually mistake it for a person.”

 

They threw Prentice’s coat at the fence. It sparked up impressively, and caught the attention of the nearby guards.

 

            “It’s an intruder!” one had yelled.

 

            “Is it? It looks a bit like a coat,” said another.

 

            “You need to get your eyes checked,” said the first to the second.

 

The coat, at that point, caught fire.

 

            “Well this is a whole other thing now,” said the second guard.

           

            “Do we have a fire extinguisher?” said the first.

 

            “Damn,” said the second. “When I got ready for work this morning, I remembered my ID badge. I remembered my keys, and I remembered my wallet. You know what I forgot?”

 

            “Why do I have a feeling you’re about to be sarcastic?” said the first.

 

            “I forgot my pocket-sized fire extinguisher.”

 

            “They sell those?”

 

            “Of course they don’t!”

 

The fire, of course, was a distraction. Prentice had, as always, a set of wire cutters on him, complete with rubber handles, because,

 

            “You always get the rubber handles,” he said. “Electrocution is no joke.”

 

They made it through the fence before long, and then walked up behind the two snarking guards. Jenny hit them both on the head, and then she and Prentice were dressed like guards.

 

            “It’s a bit big on you,” Prentice admitted. “But I think you pull it off well.”

 

            “Modeling’s my fallback career,” said Jenny. “Let’s go find XT.”

 

The fire, it seemed, had a distracting effect on the rest of the guards as well, who waved them through once Prentice had said,

 

            “We should probably put that fire out. Can we look inside for an extinguisher?”

 

And so it was that Prentice and Jenny breached the security of one of the finest prisons in Scadoosh. Finding XT was another matter entirely.

 

            “Did she not mention a cell number?” said Prentice.

 

            “Well,” said Jenny.

 

            “Jenny,” said Prentice.

 

            “She may have. I’ve forgotten it.”

 

            “You’ve forgotten it?”

 

            “Don’t repeat things, Prentice, it’s a waste of time.”

 

            “You memorized the exact space time coordinates, which is, what, one hundred and twenty-four digits?”

 

            “One hundred and thirty-eight.”

 

            “One hundred and thirty-eight. You memorized one hundred and thirty-eight digits after hearing them once, but you don’t remember the cell number?”

 

            “That’s what I said, wasn’t it?”

 

            “So how are we going to find her?”

 

Jenny turned to the door next to her, and with one solid kick bust it open. Inside, a man jumped up, pressing himself up against the wall furthest from the door, fear palpable both in his expression and in the sweat rolling down his face.

 

            “Not her,” said Jenny. “Want to try the next one?”

 

Prentice looked at her, shrugged, and turned to the next door. He lifted his foot, and kicked the door with all his might.

 

            “OW!” he yelled. The door didn’t open. Prentice hopped around a bit, holding his foot. “How the hell did you do that?”

 

Jenny shook her head.

 

            “Oh, Prentice,” she said. “You’re just hopeless.”

 

Jenny’s plan, such as it was, had an unaccounted variable. Between the sound of the door being kicked open, and that of Prentice quite possibly breaking his foot, the plan was too noisy to go unnoticed by the rest of the prison’s guards. As Prentice steadied himself against the wall, guards rushed in from either end of the corridor, and Prentice and Jenny found themselves surrounded.

 

            “You two aren’t guards,” said a guard.

 

Jenny turned to Prentice.

 

            “He’s the sharp one.”

 

            “Drop your weapons!” said the guard.

 

            “Jenny,” said Prentice. “Do we have a plan?”

 

            “I don’t know,” said Jenny. “We don’t tend to.”

 

            “Drop them! Get your hands up!” said the guard.

 

            “Oh, I’ve got something!” said Jenny.

 

            “Do share,” Prentice said as he continued to rub his foot.

 

Jenny grabbed Prentice by the arm, and smiled as she looked up at him.

 

            “Run!” she said.

 

And that's exactly what they did.


	4. Chapter 4

There came a time, a time after Scadoosh, when Jenny found herself thinking about it again. That time was a long time, and it wasn’t a good time, not for Jenny. She couldn’t tell Prentice, not about what happened, about the thing she did that changed everything. He would look at her differently. He’d look at her the way _she_ did. Jenny couldn’t talk to Prentice. But she still needed to talk.

 

There wasn’t much for the Archivist to do in the cockpit of her ship at the moment. The ship had been set to autopilot hours ago, and aside from the occasional checks on the navigational system, the Archivist had merely been sitting, watching the passing stars, and reading a battered copy of her favorite book. The quiet of space travel was one of the things the Archivist liked best about it, so when she heard the doors open behind her, followed by the steps of combat boots growing closer, the Archivist was reluctant to turn and acknowledge her new guest.

 

            “Is there something I can do for you?” said the Archivist.

 

Jenny shrugged, her expression tight in a way that clearly signaled she was holding something back. The Archivist waited, patient and quiet, for Jenny to speak.

 

            “When we met,” she said finally. “When you first spoke to me…Do you think I’m dangerous?”

 

            “Yes,” said the Archivist.

 

Jenny smiled then, slipping into the seat beside the Archivist.

 

            “Stupid question, sorry, of course you do,” said Jenny. “I just wanted…What have I done? I just mean, because, we haven’t actually met before, but clearly you know—what is it exactly? That you know?”

 

The Archivist gave her a strange look.

 

            “I don’t think I should answer,” she said. “Either you haven’t done it yet, in which case I’d be giving you foreknowledge which could be dangerous. That, or you have done it already, and you already know what it is.”

 

            “Yeah,” said Jenny. “I suppose—yeah.”

 

The two were silent for a moment. They didn’t look at each other, only at the windows, with just the slow passing of distant stars to signify their progress through space.

 

            “I hurt someone,” said Jenny.

 

The Archivist said nothing.

 

            “I hurt someone, and I didn’t need to. Back on Scadoosh. There wasn’t a reason for it, I just—I hurt someone. I broke the rules.”

 

            “Were you angry?” said the Archivist.

 

Jenny looked down.

 

            “Angrier than I’ve ever been.”

 

            “You’re young,” said the Archivist.

 

            “What, so I can’t be angry?”

 

            “No. I only meant that you’re likely to be angry like that again.”

 

            “So?”

 

            “So the question is not why you were angry. The question is not what you did. The question is how you’ll respond the next time. You’ve already broken your rules, as you say. Rules won’t stop you from hurting someone. What will?”

 

Jenny looked up again, meeting the Archivist’s eyes.

 

            “I don’t like feeling this way,” said Jenny. “I won’t do it again because I don’t want to keep feeling this way.”

 

The Archivist smiled.

 

            “You’re very young,” she said.

 

            “And?”

 

            “And what you just described is experience. We make mistakes, we grow, we move on.”

 

            “And we don’t repeat those mistakes?”

 

            “No.”

 

            “But I do.”

 

            “…Yes.”

 

            “I make that mistake again, because you don’t think I’m dangerous just for hurting one person on Scadoosh.”

 

            “No.”

 

Jenny said nothing for a moment.

 

            “What did I do?” she asked.

 

            “You forgot your own experience. This guilt you feel, at some point you won’t remember it.”

 

            “I won’t forget this,” said Jenny.

 

            “You do.”

 

            “I won’t.”

 

            “You did.”

 

            “I know.” Jenny sighed. “I just really can’t imagine how. There isn’t a day goes by I don’t think—and sometimes when I close my eyes, all I see—the _sound_ of it—“

 

            “Remember that,” said the Archivist, “for as long as you can.”

 

            “But if I forget anyway—“

 

            “You’re young,” said the Archivist. “One day you won’t be. Jenny, at some point you are going to be very, very old. Until then, remember guilt. Remember that for as long as you can.”

 

So she did. Jenny remembered.

 

* * *

 

 

XT heard a knock at her cell door.

 

            “That you, Aldo?”

 

The door opened to three men, no Aldo. On either end was a guard, and in between them they held a man. The man was hurt, that was clear. He had most of his weight on his left foot, and a cut under his right eye. There was a bruise forming there as well, and all XT could think was that he looked in remarkably good shape to have made it here with only a limp and a cut and a bruise.

 

            “I’m getting a roomie?” said XT.

 

The guards said nothing. They gave the man a push, forcing him inside, and shut the cell door, leaving him and XT alone.

 

            “Alright there?” XT asked.

 

            “Fine,” the man murmured as he stared at the ground. “I’m just gonna…”

 

He limped over to the extra cot and gingerly sat himself down. Slowly, he looked up, eyes sweeping the room until they caught on XT. First, he looked at her curiously. Then came the shock.

 

            “XT?” he said.

 

            “You know who I am?” she said.

 

            “Of course I know who you are.”

 

            “Oh,” said XT. “Do I know who you are?”

 

The man stared blankly at her for a moment.

 

            “Oh,” he said. “I suppose you don’t. XT, I’m Bayard Prentice. It’s nice to meet you.”

 

            “You’re a reader then?”

 

            “I…read, if that’s what you’re asking,” said Prentice.

 

            “No,” said XT. “You read my column?”

 

            “You have a column?”

 

            “If you know me, and you don’t know my column, how do you know me?”

 

            “We have a friend in common.”

 

            “We do?”

 

            “I suppose we don’t yet.”

 

XT crossed her arms.

 

            “You’re not making any sense,” she informed him. “What got you in here?”

 

            “Peer pressure,” said Prentice. “You?”

 

            “I wrote something true.”

 

Prentice shook his head, the last of his grogginess fading away as the significance of her meaning replaced his previous confusion.

 

            “Wait, are you—you’re a journalist?”

 

            “Yes.”

 

            “Then why are you in here?”

 

            “I told you,” said XT. “I wrote the truth.”

 

            “Is that a crime now?”

 

XT laughed.

 

            “Welcome to Scadoosh, you must be new.”

 

* * *

 

 

Laura stood still for a moment outside the office door. She relaxed her shoulders, taking a deep breath as she opened the door and faced the man standing behind his desk.

 

            “Sir, there’s someone new in Scadoosh.”

 

            “That’s not in itself newsworthy, is it?”

 

            “It’s her.”

 

            “Her?”

 

            “The Doctor’s Daughter, sir.”

 

The president turned to stare out his window. Below him, he could see the crowds gathering, shouting something he couldn’t quite make out.

 

            “That’s it then.”

 

            “Sir?”

 

            “Find her. Bring her here.”

 

            “We’re trying, sir, but—“

 

            “I understand. Bring her here. We should talk.”


End file.
